The present invention relates to communication networks, and more particularly to providing an interface between FDDI-II communication rings.
A Fiber Distributed Data Interface FDDI-II network is a high-performance general purpose local area ring network designed for efficient operation with a peak data rate of 100 Mbit/s. FDDI-II time-division-multiplexes isochronous and packet data. An FDDI-II ring may have hundreds of nodes operating over an extent of tens of kilometers.
It is desirable to provide a simple and efficient interface between FDDI-II rings. The interface preferably should not require a large amount of data buffering or frequent cycle slips. (A cycle slip consists in generating a fake cycle or discarding some data. Cycle slips are sometimes needed to satisfy timing requirements of a network or to recover from error conditions such as, for example, a network buffer overflow or underflow.)